The Royal Society of Chemistry organised a live chat with Paulo Bellutta the driver of the Mars Curiosity rover. Bellutta is one of the “robot chemist” drivers of Curiosity and joined the RSC live from Pasadena on Friday 7 September for a question-and-answer session broadcast on the RSC YouTube channel. I chipped in with a general question, which Bellutta answers at 17’05” in the video.
“Physics has had its moment for this year with the earthbound search for the Higgs boson at the LHC. Do you think chemists are going to have their Higgs moment on Mars through Curiosity’s unique mix of analytical tools?”